Here’s something you may or may not know: “The Lord of the Rings” by J.R.R. Tolkien is not a trilogy despite the thousands of books and movie tickets sold that might imply otherwise.

When “The Lord of the Rings” was being prepared for publication in 1950, Tolkien was thinking of it as a duology: that is, a book of two parts. The other is a book known as “The Simarillion,” which is sort of like The Old Testament of the Tolkien-verse.

Tolkien’s publisher, Stanley Unwin, was not convinced by the idea of publishing “The Simarillion” and wanted to publish “The Lord of the Rings” alone.

Tolkien’s publishers eventually broke the book into three volumes, which was an economic — not a litearary descision.

So it was that “The Lord of the Rings” became a three-volume epic split into six books (two books per volume).

Now, let’s get in-depth and nerdy.

In the “Lord of the Rings” the creature called Gollum leads the tale’s protagonists through a place called “The Dead Marshes” or “Palennor Fields” on their quest to destroy “The One Ring” in the cracks of Mount Doom.

Palennor Fields was the site of the greatest battle of the War of the Ring, which was a battle that occurred long before the events seen in the books or the films.

If you’ve seen the movie, you might recall this scene and the ghastly corpses suspended just under the water, their dead faces staring forever upward, trapped in the moment of their demise for all time.

Gollum describes it like so: “All dead. All rotten. Elves and men and orcses. A great battle long ago. The Dead Marshes. Yes, yes! That is their name. This way. don’t follow the lights. Careful now! Or Hobbits go down to join the dead ones, and light little candles of their own.”

Pretty creepy.

Tolkien speculated that the description of “The Dead Marshes” may have been based on his personal experiences in World War I, specifically, the Battle of Somme, during which he saw dead men — both enemies and allies — lying in the mud where they were killed.